Advice? SLU Law (1843 Scholar) vs. U of I (66% $$$)

It might very well be a 2.0 requirement for the scholarship, but ask and confirm. You might as well if 100,000 is on the line. Schools can and do manipulate scholarship conditions maybe the recent attention on law school scholarships has changed conditions, but a five minute phone call is worth insuring 100,000 is secure. You may have confirmed everything, but it is important to make sure you understand everything your getting into.

Then this family situation that has impacted your financial situation is probably still present and will flare up while in law school. If you move to St. Louis and you need to be in Illinois resulting in you missing 2 weeks of class when all the other students are there you are going to be disadvantaged and do worse than everyone else.

This situation goes to my overall point that you need to take everything into consideration. Your parents, siblings, friends, significant other, will be involved in your life whether your a law student or not. You know the extent of this "family situation," but neither me, U.S. News or anyone else here does. It has put you in a bad financial condition despite the fact you have been working for four years so I imagine it is a significant issue in your life. Therefore, take it into account when choosing what school to attend.

This is just an aside, but I am continually amazed at how people think law school is "different" than everything else. I was guilty of this myself as a OL, but there is no law school secret or anything like that. Law school is an educational experience a rigorous one, but it is education nothing more. No matter what law school you go to you will learn the law. In any Contracts course in an ABA school you will learn contracts period.

EXAMPLE ILLUSTRATING LAW SCHOOL ADMISSIONS IS NOT AS COMPLICATED AS PEOPLE MAKE IT OUT TO BE.

When you enroll you will likely make things more complicated in law school then they need to be, I know I did. However, I will never forget this in my 3rd year when I heard 1L's stressing out about promissory estoppel. I remember doing the same thing myself, but the concept is so common-sense and yet law students (myself included) somehow manage to complicate it. All promissory estoppel consists of is a promise that someone would reasonably rely on and if the person breaks the promise the person who broke the promise can be sued. . (That is really the gist of it) So if someone lies to you or flakes on a reasonable promise you can sue them.

That is not a hard concept yet I would not accept that it was that simple and neither could those 1L's I walked by, but that summarizes the law school selection process in my opinion. You already know location, cost, what you like are important factors. Yet like many OL's you are concerning yourself with rankings, anonymous internet posters, and trying to figure out the exact best possible situation. The reality is some perfect answer doesn't exist and all you can do is use your own personal judgment it is quite simple and you know what is better for you than anybody else.

I was a OL once to and I look back at the things I thought and truly believed and can't believe how naive I was. I really was making it so much more complicated than it needed to be and I think it is a common trend for law students. However, I reiterate my point that I could be 100% wrong about everything I have said, but if you think my reasoning above makes sense apply it to your situation.

Good luck to you and apply your common sense in making this decision and through your legal career. For some reason a lot of smart people leave it at the door when dealing with law school, but it can really take you a long way.